Both switch systems are based on the company's SwitchX-2 silicon, which is designed for non-blocking 2.56 Tbps full wire speed forwarding with cut-through latency and deterministic zero packet loss performance. Mellanox is a co-author of the Switch Abstraction Interface (SAI), which enables applications and Ethernet protocol stacks to operate seamlessly over any Open Ethernet compatible switch hardware platform. Mellanox was the first to integrate the SAI layer and to offer its free download as an open-source.

“It is exciting to see organizations such as Mellanox take an active role in shaping the future of open networking through not only its open collaboration and participation in the OCP Networking Project, but through its willingness to open the specs and designs around in its SwitchX-2 product line,” said Amber Graner, operations director for the Open Compute Project Foundation. “The Mellanox switch contributions are another great example of how OCP through member participation is accelerating the future of open hardware in the networking ecosystem.”